A judge in a San Diego court late Thursday dismissed one of several patent claims Alcatel-Lucent has made against Microsoft in several high-profile cases against the vendor, but that does not mean the software company is out of the woods yet.

According to Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans, a judge in the U.S. District Court in San Diego ruled that Microsoft does not infringe a patent for speech-recognition technology asserted by Alcatel-Lucent.

This is the only patent that was to be considered during a second trial in the series of claims, which had been scheduled in San Diego on March 19, he said. That trial has now been cancelled.
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The next and third case dealing with Alcatel-Lucent’s patent-infringement claims, which focuses on user-interface technology and lists Microsoft, Dell, and Gateway as defendants, is scheduled to be held May 21, Evans said. Three other trials on Alcatel-Lucent patent-infringement claims will follow this year, with Microsoft being listed as defendants in two of those.

The dance card is always seems to be full when it comes to patent lawsuits.